Extract from todays Australian. Article by Ticky Fullerton.
After seven years at the helm of Telstra, Andy Penn in his final interview as chief executive reflects on the trials, tribulations and dragging Australia’s biggest telco into the digital age
“Penn says it is not surprising that long established businesses like Telstra, with complex systems that seem poor against new competitors, want to digitise and match their rivals.
“But they usually fail in those digitisation programs. The reason they fail is they try and digitise the past,” says Penn
Does an improved UI (User Interface) lead to better productivity? Maybe.
Does an improved UX (User Experience) make it easier to deal with a task? Probably.
If the improvements in UI or UX are inwardly facing, will the digital transformation initiatives improve the CX (Customer Experience)? Nope.
Empathy, effort, emotional involvement in understanding the problems faced by the customer or consumer and the hurdles that organisations put in place (systems, processes, people) are the soft side of DT.
Making a process faster or cheaper does not necessarily add value to the CX.
Lets stop doing things 2 the customer and start doing things 4 them.
When Amazon launched in the late 1990s, I was finishing off my Undergraduate degree and distinctly remember sitting back from the desk and pondering how Amazon would change the world of commerce.
Amazons’ latest announcement has been a while coming, its now out there. The link below gives you a nice tight overview of one of the newest initiatives by Amazon, the physical retail store without a “normal” checkout. The call it Amazon Go.
Basically, a consumer “logs” into the store via a turnstile-type arrangement. (Think HK Oyster rather than Melbourne MYKI at this point!) The person then picks up items from the physical shelf and the Amazon system adds that item to the consumers shopping cart. On store exit, the basket of goods are paid for via the Amazon online checkout system. Seamless, easy and scary if you are an Australian retailer without an omni-channel plan. (If you have e-commerce and don’t have buy-online-pickup instore then Click and Collect is one of your first defensive moves. See last paragraph for your next action on this point)
Amazon Go Video
This 1:49 video shows the Amazon Go user experience.
Remembering that Amazons Revenue is now north of U$107bn, it would seem as though they have got a few things right in the past.
Omni-channel is about a friction-less buying experience and it applies to B2B in addition to B2C, the traditional e-commerce focus for Amazon and Australian organisations.
If your business has e-commerce up and running and now needs Click and Collect then lets have a confidential conversation on how to approach Buy Online and Pickup Instore.
